Highbrow, Lowbrow, Brown Cow

I don’t know about you, but I’ve categorized at least three types of comedians:

1.) There are the lofty, philosophical comedians that tell jokes that only Albert Einstein would appreciate fully (if he weren’t dead and his brain wasn’t cut into samples and spread around the world, and all). George Carlin does this all the time, and he acknowledges that he’s the “thinking man’s” comic because he wants to prove he has a brain even though he never really had a formal education (because he dropped out of high school).

2.) The comedians that tell fart jokes and steal bad ones (a la Carlos Mencia, the putz) fall into category two. This style also jumps into the comedians who do mainstream work (like the atrocious Larry the Cable Guy—honestly, “Git ‘er done” isn’t a universal phrase for every situation—ranging into accomplished comedians who jump into sitcoms and movies (like Ray Romano and Mike Myers).

3.) Then, and this is probably the most widespread style, there are the comedians that jump back and forth between jokes at random, saying things like “that reminds me of the time…” or “what’s the deal with…?” or just jumping into another joke without even the slightest segue. It seems to be a sort of ranting that works for stand-up, and I hear it with comedians like Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Gaffigan and Dane Cook. And everyone loves a good joke about Hot Pockets or Kool-Aid, don’t they?

I’ve lumped comedians together and simplified their styles. People may have other views about this—since, c’mon, you monitor the media and love to laugh as much as I do—but isn’t this verifiable fact? Purely physical comedians who do slapstick might deserve a fourth category, you might say. But, that’s really lowbrow comedy that’s technically the same as the comedians in the second category. So go suck on a lemon.